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Post by vonbek777 on Sept 28, 2011 23:51:23 GMT
Funny you should mention that...I questioned many of my teachers and professors along the way. I was a challenging student. With the exception of one, they were all open to discussion and debate. Even on tests. Most answers aren't black and white, and good tests never are. My tests most certainly aren't. Logical well crafted arguments, even flawed, are important avenues of self expression and teach others as well as yourself about how you think...the questions are as important as the answers.
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Post by vonbek777 on Sept 28, 2011 19:02:00 GMT
Probably has to do with greenhouse, no greenhouse, greenhouse, no greenhouse. That kind of BS. If you don't know, don't put it out there as a fact. Sending a doof named Gore to do your talking. Research until you know without a doubt. Had none of that BS ever started, I'd not be worried about driving a truck with a 350 4 barrell. I got 20 m per gallon in my 1970 camaro 400hp. Now a damn Kia sorento can't get 20 mpg with a V6. Several things here, first science is not faith, there should always be doubt...you can't improve those lenses I mentioned without doubts...2nd, I think the political sciences might be a better avenue for your frustration.
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Post by vonbek777 on Sept 28, 2011 16:08:08 GMT
lsvalgaard Something I keep dear to my heart. The fact that what scientists tell us, don't mean shit. Everything we learned as kids in school, is now shown to be wrong, but the "new" scientific theories are now taught in school as fact. That's a feature of science not a bug. Hopefully it will continue to be a feature and science won't bog down in ritual and dogma. Again, science changes when the tools of human observation change. Universe is like an out of focus object. Science is the lense through which we view the object. The better lenses we build, the better we 'see'. Again, as an absent minded philosopher, science is subject to chasing its own tail from time to time, but I don't understand this new anti-science rhetoric.
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Post by vonbek777 on Sept 25, 2011 20:58:40 GMT
Perhaps I didn't make that as clear as I should, what I was trying to get at is that in casual conversation with complete novices I have found that the old 2003 meme of SC24 being extremely powerful and very active still very prevalent. So these current x class flares are being used as proof of that. When you confront people with the sun being in the duldrums, they simply don't believe it. A small but otherwise normal cycle is apt at this point, but I look forward to comparing final notes. I think the sun is more odd that normal personally, at least in terms of human observation. But that hardly means anything, time will tell regardless.
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Post by vonbek777 on Sept 25, 2011 19:21:08 GMT
Going to get worse I fear heading into the next year. The panic virus seems to be spreading far and wide. There is a misconception that the current solar cycle is unusally active and very strong. Suppling facts to the contrary isn't solving the ignorance problem either. Very interesting phenomenon to watch from a distance, but I don't like it up close and personal.
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Post by vonbek777 on Sept 25, 2011 16:16:44 GMT
Theoretically the sun could burp our direction and reduce us to the stone age...how do you prepare for that? This is Nietzsche staring into the aybss...once you start down this worry road, where does it stop? How do you calculate the odds? You can't. Instability in the known can be more maddening than the unknown...sometimes you have to accept you don't have control of whatever fate throws your way. I worry about the end of our current interglacial, I don't think an ice age warning system will help me relax about it.
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Post by vonbek777 on Sept 25, 2011 13:53:35 GMT
Nice thing about studying solar activity is that it is a statistical sport. Statistically, if you are going to worry about punching your ticket out of this life, there are a great many other things to worry about. If something wicked this way comes from the sun you will be told when to jump and how high at the discretion of governments. Anyway it is kind of hard to prepare for a lot of the catastrophic scenerios out there...mother earth is a tiny ship on the solar ocean...
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Post by vonbek777 on Sept 15, 2011 1:11:25 GMT
This isn't about being a fool. I don't think you are foolish at all. This is simply about the definition of science. As an absent minded philosopher I come up with interesting ideas all the time to try to explain the metaphysical nature of human consciousness. Even ramble and speak in parables to get my points across sometimes, and I know for a fact I appear foolish to very math and logic based individuals, but the point is I don't confuse what I do with science. Take your belief statement....turn that into Zoran the Great pulls the sun chariot faster at times and that in turn creates mighty shockwaves that batter the earth and cause quakes. I know you don't think your statements are on that level, but in my opinion the method you are pursuing is akin to making stories to fit the evidence. This isn't science. It is cause and effect story telling that mankind has relied on for most of his time on the planet to deal with the unknown. I think science needs a good jolt and friendly jab from us philosophers from time to time but it certainly doesn't need to devolve into story telling. Make the connections, but do the work and prove it, don't just quit at the starting point.
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Post by vonbek777 on Sept 15, 2011 0:18:25 GMT
But coincidence doesn't explain it. What if there is something outside the solar system causing the sun and earth to quake at what on the surface seems a cause and effect sequence...or a dozen other possible things. This becomes mental ping pong which is good for brain storming and trying to figure out avenues of exploration, but for it to work...you must test your hypotheses using scientific methods and standards....
In my opinion everyone these days wants to throw around theories so they can be right without doing the work to prove it. Good science isn't a facebook page friend contest or a random internet poll of what sounds like the coolest theory. It is more often than not, slow tedious number crunching that requires measurable data and repeatable phenomena.
Find the mechanism, test it, provide the data, and then prove it. Otherwise we're just shooting the solar wind at the local pub...and that doesn't get us anywhere.
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Post by vonbek777 on Sept 14, 2011 21:30:10 GMT
beliefs... What is the mechanism? I take a piss every morning, the sun comes up. Heaven help all you the day I decide to sleep in.
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Post by vonbek777 on Sept 13, 2011 22:09:09 GMT
As an absent minded philosopher I love thinking about things, but I certainly don't confuse what I do with science. Opinions, models, and pet theories are nice, but I come here to try to learn about the 'science' behind the sun. We live in very interesting times, but science is a long view time tested endeavor and we have to wait for the hypotheses to play out. One must accept that sometimes we have to wait for the answers. Science changes as the tools of human observation change...we're in a transitory state right now, let's not be hasty and force models to tell us what we want to see. If the mechanisms are out there, we'll find them eventually.
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Post by vonbek777 on Feb 4, 2011 19:10:37 GMT
"And for the cost of the Iraq war, we can launch a thousand Ulysses space missions." Almost as if we need to change our perspectives on earth in order to change our perspective on the sun... Regardless, a nice observation.
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Post by vonbek777 on Oct 24, 2010 5:28:02 GMT
I don't post here often, mostly because I am an absent minded philosopher with very little to add in the realm of hard science, but I do follow this forum religiously. I have long felt astrophysics will one day make astrology (and by astrology I mean the ability for mankind to predict cyclic astral phenomenon in relation to the earth and sun, not whether you will be lucky in love on Tuesday) no longer the sole recreation of kings. I think it is interesting bigbud brought up the stock market and the solar cycle. I started making the same 'connections' back in 2008, and in fact posted in a certain economics blog's forum my big picture casual observations between the two. What I deeply feel now is that in the whole of human endeavor, fundamental and long held models of predictable behavior are being put to the test. Have we been gazing at the sun, or merely shadows on the wall? This is an exciting time to be a philosopher. Having said all that, we must not forget ourselves and let reason be trumped by our trips into fantasy connecting the dots. I think many here are trying to remind us we must not burn the maps of the old world, in search of the new. We must build bridges to connect the two. Just my two cents. I shall cease rambling here and go bug some economists now.
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Post by vonbek777 on Aug 25, 2009 15:39:21 GMT
Very informative. I don't have the background or expertise to declare the validity of the info...but it does jive with my personal feelings on the matter from various readings of history. I was particularly interested to hear the possible range of times for a given ice age...I am going to give it another listen. Thanks for sharing.
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Post by vonbek777 on Aug 22, 2009 2:45:56 GMT
brokenheadphonez, I am a little self-conscious here, one of the reasons I have been a long time lurker. I am not a scientist, more of a philosopher and absent minded at that...so did I say something stupid to make you sad, or does the thought of a long winter make you sad? To be clear, I am making no claims of originality for anything I posted...just taking everything I have been reading about and trying to put it together in my own mind to make sense of things. Add to that a little bit of anecdotal personal observations. All this research on cosmic clouds I find intriguing...I think the real future of understanding our little solar system lies in the bigger picture of our migration through the galaxy.
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